When Dr. Ed Pullen’s wife Kay was diagnosed with Stage 3 Ovarian Cancer, he realized that no matter how much background knowledge one might have, those feelings of fear and vulnerability still rule the experience.Physicians Can Be Vulnerable, Too

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Orlando Averts Suicide – You Can, Too

Orlando Lujan Martinez of Albuquerque, New Mexico chose to take charge of his own healthcare after realizing that the drugs prescribed by his doctors were causing depression and thoughts of suicide. Thankfully, Orlando is with us today, and shares this story as a warning to others.
Orlando Takes Charge – Averts Suicide – You Can, Too

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A Doctor’s God Complex, a Life Nearly Lost

Have you ever dealt with an arrogant doctor? Have you almost lost your life, or the life of a loved one due to a provider’s arrogance? Franny shares her story of a life almost lost:
A Doctor’s God Complex, a Life Nearly Lost.

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Versed, PTSD and Questions about Informed Consent

Informed consent is the law of the land, and yet, what can you do if the professionals go ahead and treat you without it? And what if it’s a treatment you specifically said you don’t want?

How about turning frustration and daily reminders about how dysfunctional the healthcare system is into a medical novel?

Meet SJ Robinson, former nurse, turned medical malpractice lawyer by day — and novelist at night. Learn more about The Price of Death – It Can’t Happen to Me!

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Cancer Lessons Learned

Cynthia MacGregor is the author of 54 books — but more relevant to this post — is a cancer survivor supreme. Learn how her approach to her treatment, and her get-beyond-it attitude helped heal her in a major way in Cancer Lessons Learned.

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A Sea of Broken Hearts

Alex was a college runner, in good shape, who collapsed one day while running. After spending five days in the hospital, he was discharged and told not to drive his car for 24 hours. Less than three weeks later, he collapsed and died.

Alex’s father, John T. James, PhD, a board-certified toxicologist and pathologist — a scientist who “gets” medicine — did his own investigation and discovered irregularities that would make us all take pause, including the not-well-informed consent Alex was coerced into providing that, in effect, gave the doctors who treated him permission to kill him.

As time goes on, and frustration mounts over American healthcare payment systems, access to care (make that lack of access to care) and insurance, underinsurance or total lack of insurance, we’re being watched from across our borders.

Lorne Babcock, a Canadian and observer of American dysfunction, shared a few of his thoughts. You can find them here: The View from Canada

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Stroke of True Genius

Star Lawrence is a health writer, and author of HealthSass, a blog about her experiences with the health and medical community.

You’ll love her humor — but beware the darkside. Her account of her emergency room experience in this guest post is frighteningly real.

Kim Witczak is a hero for the ways she has taken her grief, and turned it into advocacy for others.

Kim’s husband, Woody, committed suicide in 2003. His doctor had prescribed Zoloft to help him sleep. After it was all over, Kim learned that Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft, had never revealed studies that showed patients were prone to suicide when it made application to the FDA for approval to sell Zoloft.

Now Pfizer’s deception is being tested in the courts. Kim describes the most recent insult to us consumers. We should be outraged!

Our first guest post comes from Sherri Silesky. Sherry blogs about chronic pain and musings because she suffers from a variety of medical problems — having only one of them would knock most patients flat. Sherri’s guest post is called, Next, Please. See what you think — and feel free to comment!

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Would you like to publish a guest post at Every Patient’s Advocate?

I will be pleased to publish your personal story about Proactive Survivorship. Specifically, that means you (or a loved one) had a problem with healthcare (medical errors, misdiagnosis, infection problems, system hurdles, arrogant professionals, or any patient safety issue), and can tell your story about how you triumphed over that problem. If so, I would like to hear from you.

Please contact Trisha at blog (at) EPAdvocate-dot-com with your request. Up to 600 words accepted. Submissions do not guarantee publication. Trisha reserves the right to accept or refuse any suggestions or submissions.

Please note:
My goal in accepting guest posts is to showcase personal examples of individuals who have triumphed over healthcare system adversity. I will not publish any piece that does not address patient safety issues or other healthcare system problems told by example of how you, personally, have found a solution for the problem you personally faced, and/or have improved the system for others.

I am not looking for general health information, health education information, patient empowerment advice, or other more generic articles. Please do not bother submitting if you represent another website, educational or otherwise, and are looking to publish for links.

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SJ Robinson is a nurse-turned-lawyer experienced in medical malpractice cases and author of The Price of Death, a story about waste and profit in our healthcare system, a problem that kills 98,000 people annually as a result of medical error and 18,000 because they cannot afford medical care. As a result of her experience she …

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Guest Post by Nancy: I never gave up hope for a cure for my medical diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. That dreaded day stands out clearly in my mind as April 28, 2001. What alerted my husband and me that something was wrong was a noticeable, consistent shake in my right hand. My family physician cautiously …

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Franny shares her experience with the almost-loss of her husband, brought about by the arrogance of a doctor. ……………………………………… My husband of almost 50 years, Asa, died last May of melanoma – metastasized to the brain. He had over 40 months of treatment prior to that, 13 months of which were one to two-weeks stays …

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Submitted by John T. James, PhD, medical, board-certified scientist, who, despite his knowledge and expertise, lost his son to the dysfunction of American healthcare. Although here are many capable caregivers in our healthcare industry, the story of my 19-year old son’s uninformed and unethical medical care in his college town stands as a “poster child” …

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Submitted by Karyn Nilson, who is studying diagnostic coding. This is an excerpt from a class assignment. While it does not fit the parameters I usually ask for in a guest post, I felt it was important information to share, and thank Karyn for allowing me to share it with all of you. August 2009 …

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Guest post by Star Lawrence, http://healthsass.blogspot.com On Memorial Day, I was feeding the pets when I lurched over to the right and could not walk without trending rightward. What the…? As any overweight, 64-year-old knows from incessant reading and writing of health info, this means it’s your last day on earth. No problem. I have …

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(by Kim Witczak, WoodyMatters.com ) Last week, a Federal Appeals Court in Philadelphia ruled the makers of Paxil and Zoloft cannot be sued for failing to warn of a risk of suicide because the FDA had explicitly refused to order such explicit warnings. The case involved two families whose loved ones committed suicide in 2003 …

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April Liwinag’s mother suffered a missed diagnosis of breast cancer. Now April looks at the role of the justice system in making doctors more accountable, and less apt to make diagnostic mistakes. …………………………………………………………. From April: In my essay entitled, “Diagnostic Error and the Justice System: How Can We Hope for a Cure if Physicians Fail …

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Commentary by Lorne Babcock, who began with an objection about EPA writings that regard insurance and payment… I have an idea. Move to Canada, we have a real health care system here and every doctor works with your insurance company because the provincial governments and the federal government of Canada are the insurers. No one …

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Submitted by Anonymous, a patient who continues to struggle with post traumatic stress after suffering at the hands of medicine February 1, 2009 …………………………………………… Have you heard that Versed causes PTSD? Doctors love it too much for obvious reasons and it has harmed me permanently I guess. Did you know that even if you don’t …

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(by Sherri Silesky) A physician once told me that if the FAA worked like our medical system, a jumbo jet would be crashing every single day. That was a pretty powerful picture to me, but one that did not surprise me. I am chronically ill due to a rare genetic disorder called neurfibromatosis (NF). In …

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Submitted by Cynthia MacGregor, cancer survivor supreme and author of 54 books (yes, seriously!), who found that her work and her attitude went a long way toward her healing. ……………………………………………….. I think the two lessons I learned from my cancer–which was over 30 years ago (so I really *am* a “survivor”!)–are that you shouldn’t be …

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Submitted by Orlando Lujan Martinez of Albuquerque, New Mexico who chose to take charge of his own healthcare after realizing that the drugs prescribed by his doctors were causing depression and thoughts of suicide. Thankfully, Orlando is with us today, and shares this story as a warning to others. ………………………………….. I am an outpatient at …

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When Dr. Ed Pullen’s wife Kay was diagnosed with Stage 3 Ovarian Cancer, he realized that no matter how much background knowledge one might have, those feelings of fear and vulnerability still rule the experience. My wife Kay was in the best shape of her life, training for a half marathon for the second year …

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1 comment

Susan Stanton

I fought colon cancer for nearly 3 years with surgeries and chemotherapy. I had many complications including neutropenia, C.diff, MRSA, pneumonia, pulmonary emboli, septicemia, and several metabolic imbalances.

Now I am dealing with PTSD and depression because of a misdiagnosis of brain mets I didn’t have. I was in the hospital because of pneumonia and a pulmonary embolism. Having been successfully treated for the same the previous year, I had apparently told family members not to come. That was a big mistake. Besides the normal antibiotics and blood thinners, I was given additional opiates, sedatives, and psychotropic drugs. I have had pneumonia on several occassions, but never before was I given dilaudid, psychotropics, or sedatives. My oncologist decided that because I was confused and groggy (drugs), cold (my temp preference has always been around 80 degrees, and on previous visits, I was cold), and emaciated (I had a tumor in my small intestine that prevented food from going down which was being treated with laxatives!) that my cancer had metatacized to my brain, and that I had 8 weeks to live. I was too drugged to give consent for anything, and without my family’s knowledge or consent, he decided to transfer me to hospice. A friend called my ex who sent my son to get me out. The oncologist lied to my son and said there were no tests done which could confirm or deny the diagnosis. It took him 5 days to do get me out of hospice.

I later received the hospital records and found a CT scan on my brain that showed there was no cancer in my brain! 4 months later, in a different location, the tumor was surgically removed, and I have been cancer free for 8 months.

Rather than rejoice after the scans that showed the cancer was was gone, I was having trouble sleeping, I lost interest in holidays, social events, family, friends, and my horse. My world began to collapse inward, and I was afraid to travel.

This could have all been prevented if an arrogant doctor had looked at the test records. I will never go back to a hospital without members of my family nearby to protect me from what I deem as attempted murder and false imprisionment (perhaps not legal terminology) with no legal recourse to provide closure.